Rationale:
The goal of reading instruction is to provide children with the skills
necessary for comprehension. Summarization is one key strategy a mature
reader
uses in order to understand a text. In this lesson, the students
will
learn how to collect information and use it to summarize a story.

Procedures:
1.Introduce the lesson to the students
by explaining how important comprehension is. ‘“The most
important thing
we do when we read is understand what we are reading.
Understanding what
we read is called comprehension. Comprehension is our goal for
reading. One way to help us comprehend is by summarizing.
Today we
will be summarizing to help us understand what we read.’“
2.Today we are going to
make sure that we read silently so that we do not
disturb our neighbors while they are trying to read (Model
silent and
out loud reading and ask students how they are different.)
3.In order to summarize, it is important for us to follow a few
simple
rules. (Have these written on board already). Read and
explain
each to class
-delete trivial information and redundancies
-superordinate items and events
-find or compose a statement that covers everything the writer is
saying about
the topic.
If there is information that you see more than one time, you need to
delete
it. You also need to combine the ideas of the reading to make a
main
idea.
4.Model summarization. ‘“I am
going to show you how to use these rules to summarize a paragraph.’“
Read the
paragraph ‘“He is Bear-y Generous.’“http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/wr/article/0,17585,439167,00.html
‘“First, I am going to remove any unimportant information or repeated
information. It is not really important that we know that J.J has
been
selling bears since he was 13 or that he has designed a legacy
bear. Now,
I am going to note the important information. For example, J.J.’s
profits
for selling the bears will be used for college scholarships, hopefully
starting
next year. Now, I am going to find a topic sentence. J.J. Neulisthas been selling bears on
the internet to create a
scholarship to honor children who died in the September 11th
plane
crashes.’“
5.‘“Now I am going to give you a
paragraph to summarize. I want you to read it silently and then
we will
summarize the paragraph as a class.’“ Read ‘“Young Sailor has a
Whale of
a Tale.’“http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/wr/article/0,17585,409821,00.html
After students are finished reading the class will work together and
come up
with a summary using the three rules. We will write the summary
on the
board.
6.Give each student a copy of ‘“The Ayes-Ayes of Madagascar’“. This piece is
about
some very special and unique animals from a country near Africa called Madagascar.
Now, you will work with a new article to highlight only the important
information given. Remember to use the rules written on the board as a
guide to
help you determine what should be highlighted and what should not.
Also,
remember that we are reading silently.Write your summary on the piece of paper. I am
also
going to hand out a checklist with our summary rules. As you
create your
summary, I want you to check off the rules that you have followed on
your
checklist.
7.For the assessment, I will collect
the students’ checklists and summaries of the article to see how well
they
understand summarizing. I will evaluate their summaries based on
the
summary rules.

References:Pressley, Michael, et. al. ‘“Strategies That Improve Children’s
Memory and Comprehension
of Text.’“ The Elementary School Journal. The University of Chicago,
1989.